In this 100th edition (yep! It's our #100 edition!) of A Cup of Stories, LABS' weekly newsletter, you'll see:
➪ Our main topic: Ourselves! What has changed for LABS in 2021?
➪ In Things to Keep an Eye on this week: The first reactions after Chile's presidencial elections.
➪ In LABS round-up:Brazil has a brand new unicorn: the e-commerce platform Olist. Also, learn more about the new round by Boston-based edtech Slang and BNPL's Colombian fintech ADDI.
➪ And in Latin America Stories to Watch:Learn more about Matchbox, a Brazilian HRtech which aims to accelerate recruitment marketing; and get to know Agrofy, the agtech that wants to be Latin America's top 'agfintech'
Since we started this chat back in January 2020, I've talked to you 100 times (Wow, a hundred times is a lot!). And yet, it still seems that we're just getting started.
As one of our main products here at LABS, A Cup of Stories was designed to take you a little further than other newsletters when it comes to Latin America's digital business ecosystem. I know, it's a long conversation, waiting for you every Tuesday. But it's worth it, isn't it?
Nearly 1,500 subscribers open this newsletter every week, and almost 5,000 do so more sporadically.
I thought of preparing some new things for you to mark this milestone. But then I realized that it should be you who should tell me what you would most like to see in this newsletter in 2022.
What kind of story have I not told you yet? What kind of content format are you missing when reading this newsletter or LABS' website? Please feel free to let me know.
Since the middle of 2019, when LABS was actually born inside EBANX, the Brazilian fintech that processes payments in Latin America for global companies, a lot has changed.
LABS has established itself as one of the main business and technology news outlets in Latin America, the go-to source for those who want to know more about Latin America, its business and innovation environment, and amazing people.
Every day, companies, founders, investors, experts reach to us because they know the quality of our work and recognize one of our main assets: we talk to a qualified and global audience, telling the stories that everyone wants to know about on our own style and in three languages.
Speaking of which: One of our main achievements this year (besides surviving one more pandemic year - yeah!) was launching LABS’ Spanish version. This launch helped us build new relationships with LatAm’s ecosystem and has everything to ramp up in 2022.
We also managed to make our Brazilian Portuguese version skyrocket – which encouraged us to launch a weekly newsletter also in our mother tongue, called Radar LABS.
In 2021, LABS has more than doubled down its audience. It went from +27K non-paid sessions per month at the end of 2020 to almost 100k non-paid sessions a month!
As I said at the beginning of this #100 newsletter, we're just getting started!
Leftist Gabriel Boric is elected president of Chile
A brand new Brazilian unicorn: Olist raises $186 million eyeing aggressive portfolio expansion
E-commerce platform Olist announced last Wednesday it raised $186 million in a Series E round led by Wellington Management, becoming the newest Brazilian unicorn. Softbank, Goldman Sachs, and Valor Capital also participated in the round. Olist said it plans to expand its business into financial services, buy companies and expand operations in Mexico. The new round comes eight months after the closing of its Series D, also led by SoftBank and Goldman Sachs. Olist has tripled its size in 2021 and closed four acquisitions since last year. But, according to the CEO and founder of Olist, Tiago Dalvi, the company is just getting started. Read all about it in English, or Português.
Data-driven edtech Slang raises $14 million to beat up English illiteracy in Latin America
The Boston-based edtech Slang announced on Monday the closing of its $14 million Series A round, led by Mexico’s venture capital firm DILA Capital and Acumen Latam Impact Ventures (ALIVE). The venture capital arm of the technology company Salesforce, besides Roble Ventures, Impact Engine, and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Lab, also joined the round. The edtech is eyeing the expansion (increasingly frequent) of Brazilian companies and startups to other countries in Latin America. Despite the Spanish predominance on the continent, eventually, English becomes the língua franca¹ among the teams of these companies. Go deeper in English, or Português.
ADDI raises $200 million in a round that mixes venture and debt capital
Four months after the extension of its Series B round, Colombian fintech ADDI, specializing in microcredit for online purchases, has just announced a new round of investments. This time, the company raised $200 million (40% in equity and 60% in debt capital) to continue accelerating its expansion in Latin America (more specifically Colombia, Brazil, and, next year, Mexico). According to Bloomberg, the venture capital part was led by Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and followed by SoftBank‘s fund for Latin America, while the debt financing agreement was signed with Goldman Sachs and Architect, a manager that works with the so-called debt venture and had already made previous agreements with the fintech. In an interview with LABS in September, the company informed that it planned to close the year with 400 partner storekeepers in Brazil (it has already surpassed this mark, according to Brazil Journal) and reach the BRL 1 billion transacted in 2022.
Inspired by RD Station, Matchbox aims to accelerate recruitment marketing
›› LABS Investments in Brazilian startups continue to break records and, as a result, professionals in areas related to technology remain among the most sought after — and difficult to hire. Matchbox's focus is to help in this process: the startup applies marketing tactics to the hiring process. The company has also recently expanded into the employee experience segment by announcing the acquisition of HR Bot. Read the full story: in English or Português.
Agrofy raises $30 million to speed up its plans of being the top 'agfintech' in Latin America
›› LABS Argentine agribusiness marketplace Agrofy has announced a Series C round of $30 million led by Yara Growth Ventures, the arm of Norwegian Yara International, and a well-known investor in the sector. The new funding will help the company unify verticals that have been running in parallel: the e-commerce platform for agro products, the company’s e-wallet called Agrofy Pay (which should arrive in Brazil in the second half of 2022), and the next launch of the startup, its loans arm called Agrofy Credits. With that, Agrofy wants to be the main ‘agfintech’ in Latin America. The startup is one of the strongest candidates to be the region's first agribusiness unicorn. Read the full story: in English, Português, or Spanish.
¹ lín•gua fran•ca:It refers to a language that a multilingual group of human beings intentionally adopts or develops so that everyone can communicate. Globally, that language is English.
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